Eone/Hasbro together with Disney, Frog Box, Triggerfish and France Télévisions are excited to bring the adventures of a new African superhero, Kiya, to pre-schoolers around the world. Kiya is the heroine in the animated action-adventure series called Kiya & the Kimoja Heroes – a show about a team of kids that combine their everyday passions with extraordinary powers and teamwork. The series takes place in the fictional Kimoja City, a city inspired by the sights and sounds of southern Africa. The show will be streamed on Disney Junior and Disney+.
Kiya & the Kimoja Heroes is a show celebrating confidence, diversity and community. It prides itself in deviating from showing girls only as princesses, offering an opportunity to represent and empower young girls – especially since preschool action superhero stories traditionally skews to young boys and rarely feature black girls as leads.
“Our belief is that Kiya will represent and empower young girls to be leaders who can use their smarts and skills to solve big problems,” says Tshepo Moche, writer and creative consultant at Triggerfish, “While Kiya is not the first Black female protagonist in children’s programming, there is still a tremendous opportunity for representation. There has never been a better moment for the landscape of children’s programming to reflect the diversity and size of the audience they serve.”
Kiya & the Kimoja Heroes is one of the shows that came out of Triggerfish’s 2015 Storylab initiative that has proved to be a golden opportunity for finding fresh stories and incredible talent, specifically from the African continent.
Watch the trailer teaser here: https://youtu.be/GvmeADFEzq4
Aau’s Song to feature in Star Wars: Visions Volume 2
In an announcement made on February 2nd by LucasFilm, Triggerfish was named as one of the select animation studios from around the world to contribute an original short film to the Star Wars: Visions Volume 2 series. Aau’s Song from Triggerfish’s writer/directors Nadia Darries and Daniel Clarke will be released as part of the animated anthology series that will premiere May 4, 2023, a.k.a. Star Wars Day, exclusively on Disney+. The second volume of films, building on the Emmy Award-nominated first run of Star Wars: Visions in 2021, will feature nine new shorts from nine studios from around the globe.